Andy Rooney, during his November, 14, 2010 episode of 60 Minutes, claimed:
A Gallup poll said that President Obama's approval rating was at an all-time low. Gallup said that they surveyed over 90,000 Americans for this one poll. I mean, where was I when they were calling people about President Obama?
The survey said that only 44 percent of us approve of President Obama's performance.
Well, I surveyed nine of my friends and eight of them said they liked Obama but didn't trust a Gallup Polls. As far as I'm concerned, Obama's doing the best job he knows how and it's good enough for me.
Something called the 2010 Mercer Quality of Living Survey chose the top 221 best cities to live in, in the whole world. According to this survey, the three best cities were Vienna, Zurich, and Geneva; New York City came in 49th out of the 221 cities that they rated.
I was born in Albany, New York. I've lived in London, Cologne, Paris and Beverly Hills. I've lived in New York City for a long time now. And I'll take New York. I forget whether I've ever been to Zurich or not. I wouldn't want to live in a city I forget whether I've ever been to or not. You can't forget New York.
Another survey about the reliability of 2011 model cars showed that General Motors cars - Chevy, Buick, Cadillac and GMC - have improved and are now ranked higher in reliability than Mercedes Benz, BMW, and Audi. Bad for the German car makers but good for the Americans.
Despite all the surveys I read, I've never been asked what I think about anything. My answers would be a lot different than the answers they say people give. They should survey people about what they think of surveys.
Rooney’s comments gave his viewers yet another example of what the declining standards of journalism now looks like and likewise proves three very troubling facts about this so-called reporter:
- 1. A failure to understand the basics of journalism and statistical sampling
- 2. Display of an attitude of a pompous superior intelligence over the general population
- 3. An overall denial of reality and intolerance for dissenting opinions
Gallop Polls have long been accepted as an objective organization that conducts mass public opinion polls concerning practically every current political, social, and economic subject imaginable. Their surveys span across 140 nations, according to Wikipedia’s estimate, such that nearly 95% of the world’s adult population is represented. Clearly, the Gallup Organization has quite a large grasp on providing objective public opinion results.
Yet, Andy Rooney prefers instead to question the organization's validity and opts instead to draw conclusions based off an informal survey of nine of his friends as though his buddies’ views have the same merit and carry the same weight of a statistical sampling conducted by Gallup.
Andy Rooney challenged the validity of Gallup's polls with the opinions of nine buddies. Even first year college students studying Communications, Marketing, or Economics, no doubt know that one must obtain at least 32 points of data in order to have an accurate representation for a study. Thirty-two points of data, you say? Bah! Eight out of nine of Andy Rooney’s friends agree with Andy Rooney and approve of President Obama’s performance! Now those are reliable “statistics” we can count on!
I did appreciate Rooney’s pompous narcissism in insinuating that, had he been questioned for the survey, the results would have somehow been altered to show that the majority of Americans approve of Obama…regardless of the sheer number (90,000+) of other Americans who were surveyed and upon whom the survey results were based. After all, everyone must know that tens of thousands of opinions coming from lowly peons, er, citizens is hardly equivalent to the magnanimous and utterly priceless perspective of Andy Rooney.
Oh well, as far as Rooney is concerned, “Obama's doing the best job he knows how and it's good enough” for him.
Translation: ‘My opinion is much more important than everyone else, so what’s good enough for me should be more than good enough for the rest of you. You want my opinion. You need my opinion. And if Gallup didn’t ask for my opinion, it clearly is not a reliable source of information.’
Perhaps his skepticism to believe the Gallup results stems from his own network’s tenancy to distort facts or conveniently revise poll results to push a certain agenda. Ironic how, while Obama’s ratings were higher during his campaign, the polls were somehow a dead-on indication of how “out of touch with reality” the GOP and Tea Party were with the majority of Americans. Yet now as the majority of Americans have clearly lost their excitement for the President and his destined-to-fail policies, the polls are somehow untrustworthy, questionable, and probably wrong, in the eyes of Rooney.
Somehow, it makes more sense to Rooney to question the integrity of an internationally-recognized organization that provides objective, statistical results of public opinion rather than to resign to the fact that his opinion isn’t important, isn’t revered and repeated by his viewers, and is only marginally accepted and agreed with by the majority of the American population.
Oh, and could someone PLEASE tell me where Rooney was during the Bush administration, if a measure of “doing the best job he knows how” is equivalent to a successful and acceptable rating of the presidency?
Rooney’s intolerance for dissenting opinions not only gives evidence to his general denial of reality and lack of journalism standards, but it also highlights a few glaring logical fallacies (Appeal to Popularity and Biased Sampling, to name a few) through is continued implication that if more of his friends agree with his opinion, his opinion somehow has more truth and validity.
~Gee
